What is "The Great Mistake"?

[gimley_gunner]

We are living through the Great Mistake right now. A long process but infinite growth is unsustainable. The Neolithic (the new stone age) when we discovered farming rather than the Industrial Revolution was when the seeds of the Great Mistake were planted. When we moved from being nomadic hunter gatherers to settled farmers that was when we made our extinction inevitable

 

[oldag07]

The Great Mistake is actually a fictional catastrophic event made for a game called Civilization Beyond Earth. The fiction behind it is very vague.

 

[poom3619]

The Great Mistake is what happen when the writer doesn't happy with humanity colonizing another planet without good "justification".

What's wrong with humanity live happily and peacefully in future and just want to spread the joy? Do humanity need to be threatened before we start thinking about our survival?

 

[Stylesrj]

The Great Mistake is what happen when the writer doesn't happy with humanity colonizing another planet without good "justification".

What's wrong with humanity live happily and peacefully in future and just want to spread the joy? Do humanity need to be threatened before we start thinking about our survival?

Considering how Human history is and what we're currently doing now... yeah.

Humanity does great progressive leaps when threatened. Even in peacetime. Although most of it would go to military. But still, if building rockets to go to other planets is needed to survive, we'll do it.

 

[poom3619]

Building rockets to go to other planets is needed to survive. Even humanity as a whole is wise enough not to destroy ourselves in the next thousand years. There's no guarantee that planet Earth wouldn't suddenly kill us with large earthquake or mega volcano or 6th mass extinction.

 

[Endar]

My guess is that it was the collapse of world economy and destruction of the biosphere by pollution.

While global warming is popular bogey-man, it doesn't do deadly damage: yes we will sea higher sea levels, more sever droughts, more storms and other weather disasters, but nothing we humans can't handle (expect a lot of money spent on construction of dams, desalination plants, typhoon - resistant infrastructure, etc.). Sure some land will become desert, we will have to evacuate some cities that can't be saved by dams (bye bye Florida) - but WW2 caused much more destruction and our grandparents somehow lived through that.

The real problem is pollution by toxic wastes produced by almost every industry. They are slowly poisoning the entire planet. When massive die-offs will begin it would be late to do anything.
E.g. everybody hate nuclear power but radioactive wastes remain deadly just for decades and dangerous only for couple of centuries, but millions of tonnes of poisons produced by coal or gas power plants remains forever.
Imagine if entire planet becomes infertile, what we would have to do? And this is where we are heading to.

As for economy, some analytics predict that by the end of the century only 2-3% of population will remain employed - due to automation and development of capable AIs (or "intellectual interfaces"). This is the worse case scenario that will happen if new kind of work will not appear (it happened twice when mot of the farmers had become workers during industrial revolution, and again when most workers moved to service sector during the second industrial revolution; what will happen in this century? who knows...)

Gradually rising extreme poverty, riots. lack of resources and dying life - does it sounds like a Great Mistake?

 

[Stylesrj]

Imagine if entire planet becomes infertile, what we would have to do? And this is where we are heading to.

We build big domes and huddle everyone in there, using hydroponics to grow our food.
Or at least someone would start making shelters to hold the remnants of humanity while the world outside dies away.

The opening cutscene should have everyone wearing respirators

 

[gunnergoz]

The Great Mistake was in assuming that the earth's supply of consumables (minerals, metals, fossil fuels) is infinite and there will always be access to the materials by which man exerts his domination of nature.

 

[Velasti]

One nice bit in CivBE about the Great Mistake - is just one line, given upon reaching one of Harmony affinity levels, iirc. It reads: "I wonder what life was like on Earth when the whole atmosphere was breathable?".

You see, nuclear conflict can't render Earth athmosphere not breathable. The only thing which can do it - is massive dyout of Earth photosynthetic organisms, including most of algae in the ocean (and the ocean is some 71% of Earth surface, you know).

Nuclear conflict can't kill algae in the ocean any much. What can?

Nuclear war causes massive amounts of particulate matter to enter the atmosphere. Hence nuclear winter.

Nuclear winter blocks sunlight.

Sunlight causes mass photosynthetic die off.

No photosynthesis = no oxygen.

This is the reason why nuclear weapons are immoral. They can never be used, because they cause Armageddon. An international nuclear tit for tat would cause massive damage to the biosphere which the world would never recover from.

Hence why New Zealand is nuclear free. Please see this speech: http://publicaddress.net/great-new-zealand-argument/nuclear-weapons-are-morally-indefensible/

We know that if the nuclear winter comes, we freeze, we join the rest of you.

The term itself appears to have been invented early in the 20th century a few years before WWI broke out.

Yes, Cold War is normally included. A hypothetical WW III has been in fiction since WW II.

Churchill called the Seven Years War "the first world war".

Some historians go back further and include the Wars of Spanish & Austrian succession.

WWIII isn't really hypothetical. I mean, it seems insane to think about it now, but the Cold War was a war. WWII ended with the followers of Freedom and the followers of Order eliminating the followers of Autocracy. There was massive distrust on both sides (and still is today), ending with Soviet's having the military advantage on Europe vs the Western and Oceanian armies. You say "hypothetical", but if you had gone back to the 1940s and told people there wouldn't be a conflict between Russia and the Rest they'd have thought you were insane. WWIII looked to be inevitable, the only thing that stopped it was the atomic bomb - Russian's European military supremacy was cancelled out by Airbase One's ability to drop nukes on Moscow. The West and the Soviets didn't trust one another and had already engaged in open conflict with one another (Britain's forces in Greece fought against the Communists)

A hypothetical WWIII is more speculative fact than fiction

 

[Nares]

Kudos to whoever generated the poll. I very much appreciate the second option.

An international nuclear tit for tat would cause massive damage to the biosphere which the world would never recover from.

Except, Chernobyl. And everywhere else they tested nuclear weapons.

Human civilization may not recover, but isn't that like some environmentalists' wet dream?

(Britain's forces in Greece fought against the Communists)

Russia gave Greece to the Brits. They just failed to inform the locals. Not exactly atypical behavior under Stalin.

There's no guarantee that planet Earth wouldn't suddenly kill us with large earthquake or mega volcano or 6th mass extinction.

That's coming regardless if any of the poll options actually occur. Was a mega volcano in the poll options? I'm uncertain how many there are in the world, but if the one in North America blows, it's pretty much game over for everyone.

What's wrong with humanity live happily and peacefully in future and just want to spread the joy?

Apparently, we're all guilty, and we should carry that guilt into the cosmos. Seems too religious for me.

 

[Velasti]

Except, Chernobyl. And everywhere else they tested nuclear weapons.

This is completely beside the point.

This is the equivalent of saying that Asteroid 1950 colliding with Earth would cause the extinction of the human race,

Except, the human race survived the February 2013 Chelyabinsk asteroid.

To clarify for your understanding, Asteroid 1950 would cause an impact equivalent to 44,800,000,000 tonnes of TNT, while the Chelyabinsk impact caused an impact equivalent to 500,000 tonnes of TNT.

Do you understand what is wrong with the point you made?

The nuclear winter scenario is based off simulations of the atmospheric effects of firestorms occurring in cities, following a full-scale nuclear attack.

Chernobyl wasn't a nuclear explosion, to begin with. The Chernobyl disaster was a steam-pressure explosion, which caused the nuclear chain reaction to stop, but also caused nuclear material to disperse over the countryside. If Chernobyl had been a nuclear explosion, there wouldn't be a Chernobyl any more.

Most places that they have tested nuclear weapons haven't generated firestorms.

Setting cities on fire, like a firestorm would, generates lots of smoke. What exactly do you think lots of smoke does in the atmosphere?

The major policy implication of nuclear winter was that a full-scale nuclear attack would produce climatic effects which would so disrupt the food supply that it would
be suicide for the attacking country

http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockNW2006JD008235.pdf

Please don't make arguments which are completely beside the point. There hasn't been a full-scale nuclear attack, so saying the effects of a full-scale nuclear attack haven't happened is stating the obvious.

Russia gave Greece to the Brits. They just failed to inform the locals. Not exactly atypical behavior under Stalin.

Russia gave Britain Greece in exchange for what? You have to have something to give it away. And it's a bit slack, not to inform the locals that you are giving them away, isn't it?

Russia is also not invading the Ukraine, nor are they backing non-state actors (which absolutely are not Russian), nor are they currently using non-state actors to advance Russian state policy. And of course, the Ukraine "gave" Russia its East, as part of a peace deal... but they have failed to inform the locals.

As you say, not exactly atypical behaviour.

Human civilization may not recover, but isn't that like some environmentalists' wet dream?

That's like, some rabidly extremist anti-Human wet dream, yes. Shall we call them Gaians?

I don't think those people should be called environmentalists. Gives the rest of us a bad name.

 

[Treys1]

The Great Mistake is almost confirmed to not be related to a World-Wide Ecological Disaster caused by Global Warming. This is primarily due to the Civilopedia which details Al Falah as being "at the center of the great mistake" and nations such as the North-Sea Alliance "Being far from the effects of the Great Mistake". The Ecological disasters and rising sea tides are then mentioned in the NSA's bio as happening AFTER the Great Mistake, forcing them to adapt.

Most likely, whatever the great mistake was, it devastated the Middle East to near unlivable conditions. Unfortunately Rising Tides added a dozen new terms that are not defined at all.

 

[Treys1]

This is the reason why nuclear weapons are immoral. They can never be used, because they cause Armageddon. An international nuclear tit for tat would cause massive damage to the biosphere which the world would never recover from.

Hence why New Zealand is nuclear free. Please see this speech: http://publicaddress.net/great-new-zealand-argument/nuclear-weapons-are-morally-indefensible/

While agreeable that Nuclear Weapon usage is terrible there are two unfortunate facts. One, it is easier for a state like New Zealand to be Nuclear free. They have allies who have nuclear weapons, they fall under the umbrella of that protection. By all reality, there only has to be nukes in a minimum of two countries to ensure that all nations can't be touched. We most likely will never see a Nuclear Free world in totality, unless something occurs that forcibly removes them, due to the theory in Political Science known as "Perpetual Distrust". You can never trust another state to do anything it says, therefore any agreement made must be viewed with scrutiny. Getting rude of all nuclear weapons at this point is as hopeful as getting rid of all militaries, all it would take is one nation to lie and they have all the cards.

As for the second fact, while terrible weapons, they maintained the system. The world has been in a near century of relative peace, where no two great powers have warred with each other. The consistent threat of MAD, while entirely terrifying, has prevented this. Powers have fought yes, in proxies. They never directly confronted, they only attempted to undermine. (As for your Greece commentary, the Russians supported but were not present in Greece. After the war communist party members attempted to overthrow the government and the Allies managed to prevent it. The Greek debacle was one of the first strains on the British that led to them losing superpower status actually)

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Most likely, whatever the great mistake was, it devastated the Middle East to near unlivable conditions. Unfortunately Rising Tides added a dozen new terms that are not defined at all.

They stole the backstory of COD Ghosts? Really puts the stealing of game concepts from Europa Universalis into perspective.

 

[GenyaArikado]

Can some mod edit this into every first post from every page please?

This panel presentation (Will Miller and Dave McDonough) will be posted on YouTube sometime this week, but I thought I would pass along my notes from that panel. My notes are admittedly incomplete (the panel was so interesting I forgot to jot down many things ), but here is what I have.

The purpose of the panel was to explain the Earthly backstory as of the time of the seeding, laying the foundation for the factions and their unique abilities. From a gameplay perspective, since they were not confined to historical civs, they wanted to construct a plausible future history to explain how the factions arose and why the seeding was so urgent. In their view, a variety of forces/events had to come into play, including territorial upheaval from warfare and climactic devastation, population upheaval in the form of mass migration, famine and pestilence, and technological upheaval, including communications failures/blackouts (no more internet -- gasp!) and political disengagement/isolationism.

The timeline they outlined starts about 50 years from now with the "Great Mistake", followed by 4 generations of recovery (indeterminate number of years -- just "4 generations"), by which point technology has recovered and progressed to a level just ahead of where we are today. At that point, we have the technology to send seed ships and also have come to realize that the "inflection point" is nigh. The inflection point is described as the point in time when the Earth will no longer have sufficient energy resources to propel meaningful cargo beyond Earth orbit. If other planets are not seeded before the inflection point, humanity is forever confined to Earth. (In their view, the backstory did not require explanation of the propulsion methods needed to accomplish the seeding, so that is left to our imaginations.)

What was the Great Mistake?

It starts in China, with a dirty bomb being exploded in Chengdu. The Chinese accuse Iran, fire tactical nukes at Iranian cities, and invade Afghanistan. Pakistan conducts air strikes against China, and China retaliates by nuking Pakistan. Pakistan counter-nukes, triggering further Chinese nuclear attacks against Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and, of all places, N. Korea. At this point, approximately 1/3 of the worlds population has suffered a nuclear attack. Mass migrations of refugees destabilize neighboring regions, including Russia, Eastern Europe, India and East Africa.

The next shoe to drop is dramatic climate change -- polar ice caps melt (the poles are ice-free for many months of the year), raising sea levels by 20 feet, triggering further dislocations and migrations, particularly from coastal China, India and the Americas.

Against this backdrop, the various BE factions begin to emerge.

Most Western nations turn inward, focusing on their own problems and adopting neo-isolationist policies, allowing the rest of the world to sort itself out. Two notable exceptions are Australia, which happily conducts business with everyone, and the Sub-Saharan nations that eventually form the People's African Union, which suffered the least territorial losses from climate change (Africa serves as the world's breadbasket). ARC becomes a super-corporation whose power rivals (or exceeds) that of its host nation (U.S., plus Canada and Mexico). For reasons that are a bit obscure, a hybrid Hindu/Islam religion forms in India, which leads to political union between India and Pakistan (notwithstanding their historical differences). The Chinese-led PAC includes Mongolia and N. Korea, but probably does not include S. Korea and Japan, which remain independent. The EU collapsed early, but Franco-Iberia serves as the effective successor -- presumably including also the Low Countries and perhaps Italy, but definitely not including Germany, England or any of Scandinavia. (They hinted that those countries' (and presumably Japan's) post-Great Mistake stories have yet to be told -- expansion pack material???).

They emphasized that this was the version of the Great Mistake that they used as the backstory for development purposes. None of this appears in-game or affects gameplay, so we are free to (are encouraged to) conceive our own versions of the Great Mistake.